NASA Invites Media to View Launch of Mission to “Touch” Sun

Media accreditation is open for the launch of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, a historic mission that will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun. The launch window will open at about 4 a.m. EDT, with an approximate one-hour duration, no earlier than Saturday, Aug. 4.

The spacecraft will launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. Media prelaunch and launch activities will take place at CCAFS and NASA’s neighboring Kennedy Space Center. 

Media interested in attending prelaunch and launch activities must submit an accreditation request online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov/

Credentialing deadlines are as follows:

• International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 4:30 p.m. Thursday, July 5, for access to CCAFS, or by 4:30 p.m. Friday, July 20, for access to Kennedy media activities only.
• U.S. media must apply by 4:30 p.m. Friday, July 27.

For questions about accreditation, please email ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other media questions, contact Kennedy’s newsroom at 321-867-2468.

Launch date schedule updates will be posted at:

https://www.nasa.gov/launchschedule/

Parker Solar Probe, about the size of a small car, will provide unprecedented information about our Sun, where changing conditions can spread out into the solar system to affect Earth and other worlds. The spacecraft will fly directly into the Sun’s atmosphere where, from a safe distance of approximately 4 million miles from its surface, the spacecraft will trace how energy and heat move through the Sun’s atmosphere and explore what accelerates the solar wind and solar energetic particles. 

Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star Program, managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built and manages the mission for NASA. 

United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colorado, is the provider of the Delta IV launch service for Parker Solar Probe. Northrop Grumman is providing the rocket’s fully-integrated third stage. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, is responsible for launch service acquisition, integration, analysis and launch management. 

Join the conversation on social media by following on Twitter and Facebook at:

https://twitter.com/NASASun

and

https://www.facebook.com/NASASunScience/

-end-